Welcome to GamerDad: Gaming with Children. My name is Andrew S. Bub - the GamerDad - and I've been writing about videogames, movies, and children for over 15 years now. After working as a magazine journalist, I switched gears to write about how media violence affects children, educating parents about them, and working closely with magazines, newspapers, major retailers and even politicians. GamerDad is an internationally recognized expert in this field. Games, movies and media are fun, kids and families love them, they aren't going away. So join me in cutting through the hype and lets have a real conversation about the things that matter: Video Games, Violent Media, and their supposed effect on children and families.

I got this book about a year ago and just never got around to writing about it until now. Just too many games to review and such! Anyway, it’s a book of official art from the Zelda series and makes a nice companion to the Hyrule Historia book that came out earlier. I thought I’d just take a quick look at it with you all.

Scribblenauts is a very creative game series where you can type in any word to make it appear on screen, and then you use what you create to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles in a 2-D platform world. Later games in the series even let you join forces with DC superheroes! And now you can play against each other in this multiplayer party entry Scribblenauts Showdown! It’s available for PS4, Switch, and Xbox One, but reviewed on PS4 here. The whole thing kind of reminds me of a mix of Mario Party and Scattegories!

DropMix makes a game out of the role of a DJ. Players drop music track cards into slots on the board, mixing their sounds together to make new remixes of their own. Players compete or cooperate while playing a matching game to create new sound mixes. While the game doesn’t have much depth, the fun in the system lies with messing around with different combinations of the available tracks. As a game, DropMix is so-so, but for music fans it can be a fun and interesting toy.

American Girl is a popular line of toy dolls, and now you can read about their adventures with the new free-to-play American Girl World app. It’s available on iOS and Android devices, but reviewed on iPad here. The app takes the form of an interactive story book, with each book on the app featuring one of four characters. The first character you can read about, Z. Yang, is an aspiring filmmaker. But when she wins a film contest audition, can she juggle that, her school projects, and dealing with her friends? After that you can read about the next friend with a bunch of in-game coins, and the last two stories cost real money.

In the Hero Realms card game players alternate between playing cards to fight each other and collecting more cards to be more powerful in the future. This deckbuilder follows in the footsteps of the hugely popular Star Realms but is more than just the same game with a different theme. There are very strong similarities, but in Hero Realms players can begin with a themed starting deck (based around typical RPG character classes) and have the option of playing in a campaign game and/or fighting a specially designed communal boss monster. While Hero Realms feels very similar to Star Realms, the opportunity to play against specific boss monster decks or try out the co-op campaign game makes Hero Realms a unique experience.

Evil has taken over the Multiverse and four warriors are here to stop it in this free-to-play mobile game that emulates an arcade style side scrolling beat ‘em up. Play as characters like Aurok the barbarian and Thera the Amazonian spear wielder as you beat up all manner of fantasy themed bad guys. ChronoBlade is available to download on iOS and Android, but reviewed on iPad here.

To celebrate the recent release of Kirby Star Allies for Nintendo Switch, let’s look at another Kirby game that came out earlier this year that I just now got around to playing. It’s Kirby Battle Royale, a 3DS game featuring four player battle style mini-games with Kirby and his different copy abilities. There are ten different types of arenas to battle in, and they’re all pretty interesting enough to be deemed ‘blog-worthy’ by me, so let’s take a look at them! Also be sure to stick around to the end, as I’ve got some news about HAL Laboratory (creators of Kirby), and their first new mobile game!

Why talk about a 6 ½ year old videogame? The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has now been ported to the Nintendo Switch, making this the first portable version of the title. Players can take their exploration-based fantasy RPG with them on the go. If you haven’t yet tried this award-winning RPG or if you’re a huge fan and want to be able to play anytime or anywhere that you like, the Switch version is a great place to start.

Last year I reviewed a game called Tokyo Xanadu. I didn’t really like the game all that much, but one of my brothers showed a keen interest in it. So when the EX+ version of it came out and I got a review code for it, I decided to let him take a stab at it, so here is my brother Ben Woodman’s review of Tokyo Xanadu EX+ for PS4.

Kung-Fu Zoo has players flicking animal-themed dice into an arena to score points and/or eliminate other players by knocking them into a corner pocket. A fast moving game of skill, with a healthy dose of luck, makes for a great game for younger kids even if it won’t have much staying power for older gamers.